Getting the gigs, artist publicity, Sorted magazine

Currently I do freelance,which is free, work for Sorted magazine. If you aren’t a Christian, that will feel like you’re ‘giving back’ to society. For me as a Christian, I am helping a wholesome blokes magazine to function well. And to help transform lives.

I love it.

Oh… please don’t ask for me to do YOUR work for free. This is part of how I give. The art I give is roughly £200 a month, so it’s part of my giving. I have to still eat.

I always wanted a gig doing illustrations for an international magazine. Sorted has a readership of over 100k, and in 21 countries. You can get it at WHSMITH, and even on Readerly.

Awesome interviews as well.

Artist publicity and Sorted magazine

For artist publicity, I don’t really go looking for it. I would like it, but only so that I can promote the work I am illustrating for the benefit of my authors. I guess I should work harder at it. You can, if you like, sign up to my newsletter. Which I hardly ever send out.

Maybe in the new phase of life as I go from working for the Church of England and part time artist, to artist who works part time for the diocese, I’ll have more time to develop this side of things. I really need to.

To be honest, I rely mostly on word of mouth, and God being in charge.

That said, when a bit of great publicity comes along and it’s offered free, I won’t say no.  Take for example Val Fraser asking me if she can write an article on me for Sorted. As their resident scribbler – there have been others before.

Have a read if you’d like to hear a bit more about me.

Getting the gigs (as an illustrator)

Again, I don’t really look for them. Have a read of the article and you’ll see why. I was asked the other day my approach. And although I told them about how you could use facebook, I said in the end work out how to serve people with your art. Once you have that, just do it, and do your work in public. Got an NDA (none disclosure agreement)? Then do other personal work so that people keep seeing you. I get offered a lot of work I have to turn down.  The large group of friends on facebook keep me posted of opportunities.  And now on twitter as well.

I also share the work of others, and promote it. I’m not looking for return favours, I just think I would like it if people did it for me, so I do it for them. I think it’s what Jesus would do.

This is what I typed to a new connection, word for word. Forgive the typos… I can’t be bothered  correcting it as it’s just a facebook message done on my phone.

Socialise Do your work in public Build a following of people who aren’t artists – this is your network

Build a following if friends who are in the industry you want to be in. If they can’t pick up work, they will pass it to you.

Also related industries. So I’ve got friends who are writers. Much of my work comes from the Christian market as well, so since I’ve got lots of friends who are Christians…

Ok, nitty gritty Focus on how you can serve others in what you do. It’s not about money, that follows if you serve well. A millionaire gave me that advice. So I help people tell their stories. Everything I do is to make that happen. But also serve people by sharing their work. Promoting them. And so on. Being the person who does that has such an impact on folks. They are more than happy to share you. That’s why your network is essential. I use Facebook. The others just haven’t worked for me. I use my personal page. I don’t use pages and groups as well as I should. There’s a few tricks to making things work and it’s a time sink.

But if you can get it working it’s a good way of getting worse out. So I share everything I’m working on. NDA’s are stupid. No one steals as much as is assumed. If you or the client are worried, just di some of your own work. Occasionally an image will blow up for me, and it keeps me there for people when they want an illustrator. But even more so, those people recommend me for jobs that their friends have for me. Work in public, then, is one of the best things. Make social media work by messaging people for fun: that means the algorithm recommends you more. Comment on other people’s times lines. That kind of thing. And something ive not done I need to, is get the email list rolling Specialise. Become known for one industry, and although experiment broadly, be known for one style. You get asked then to go more broad. But it’s your calling card So where is all the money? Kidlit. So long as you can visually tell a story, and work quickly, and refuse to fight to the bottom in terms of what you charge. Best bit of advice is subscribe to SVSlearn.

One of the founders was the guy behind inktober.

Loads of free stuff but the paid parts, which are amazingly cheap, are worth it. If you can illustrate (and you’re brilliant already) the rest is just knowledge building for the book industry. Covers pay most. But internals are great fun too. When you don’t have work, work on your own stuff. I’ve seen you already reinterpret ideas. So if you go down the kidlit route, then grab old folk tales and illustrate them. There’s ways of getting agents and so on, all covered by svs and their forum will get you loads more answers. So how do I go about it? If you stalked me you’ll see Im a minister as well, aka Christian. I’ve illustrated for years various projects so I’ve got a lot of experience.

Always kept it a side job though because I actually quite enjoy what I do (youth and Childrens minister, more recently more stuff with adults), but only 4 years back I recognised that the funding was vanishing from churches. If I was to keep doing what I was doing I’d need to be self supporting. So aimed to ramp up my illustration work. I am now at a point where I could walk away from that ministry paid side of work.

But there’s still bits I want to do so dropping it down to a minimum effective time. It’s just something I still want to do LOL

Anyway, and this will sound odd, along with the Christian millionaire who told me to work out who and how to serve, I also decided God was the boss. He manages the work. The mistake I made was in the quiet bits I’d get twitchy and pitch for jobs. So there would be a shout out in my network for an illustrator and I’d offer, and get the work. But then I ignored God and what he thought was best. The result was if then get an even bigger job offered to me and fall in my lap. I’d have to take it, but now I had too much and didn’t have a good wirk life balance. I’ve now learned just to trust God will send me the right amount of work. And he does as well! You’d have to see it to believe it.

If you want to catch up with me, email me, or go find me on Facey (Revandygray … send me a message first to say why you are friending me). Or insta (onegraydot).

Sneak Peak – when the hugs came by Joe Fisher

Current work:

When the Hugs Came – a sequel to ‘when the bugs came’ by Joe Fisher.   I had the initial sketch which was a thumbnail

I’ve then created some digital sculptures in zbrush, which I then pose to match my thumbnail concept. I’ve been unhappy recently with some of my consistency between pictures of characters. You’ll see that they aren’t simple draw overs, but they become references. The last picture is the final after colouring.